Paul's indictments against mankind
Romans 3:13-18 · Roger Henderson · Apr 2, 2023
Romans (2022-25), No. 018
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261930485462

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Well, good morning. Nice to see lots of people in person. So actually this is the last week of the bad news. Mike's going to give us the verdict. Actually, it'll be two weeks before the verdict. Next week we'll talk about our wonderful Savior and we'll have a resurrection message.

But this week we're going to finish up the The indictments against man. So I labeled this Paul's indictment against mankind. So I've been using this outline for a while. So basically, we started off way back in chapter 1 with verse 18 talking about the condemnation of mankind. We talked about the Gentile world, kind of two parts to that. The immoral man. the moral man and then we moved into the Jewish condemnation and now we're talking about the whole world is condemned but still kind of a focus on the Jew in this as well and that will come out in the verdict here so and we covered 9 through 12 last week so today I'm going to go back and review 9 a little bit and and 12 through 10, 10 through 12, and then go on to the rest of the indictments.

So here's a picture, this picture that Macaulay does it, I think Merriman does it and others. There's really a picture of a courtroom scene in these verses. You know, if you watch Perry Mason or the other trial people, I mean, I've forgotten all the different names. Anyway, they all have a courtroom scene.

And so this is very much set that way. So the charge is in verse 9. All are under sin or all mankind are under sin. So that's the charge. And then Paul will bring indictments. He's going to bring basically 14 indictments. He's going to bring six indictments about the scope of man's sin, or the character of sin in mankind. He's going to talk about the depths of sin. He's going to have seven in that. And then he's going to come down to the climax, if you will. His climactic indictment is the source of sin.

And then Mike's going to finish it up here in two weeks. He's going to talk about the defense. The defense is pretty short. You know, if they had like the prosecution rests, now defense comes up. The defense stands up and says, every mouth is shut, and sits down. That's the defense. When you're talking with God, there is no defense. He created you, so there's no defense.

And the verdict is, all the world is accountable to God. Okay, so now let's look at the... go back and we'll... This is a picture from Brother Hal back from 2006. So this is a verse that talks about all mankind are under sin. And boy, I think this really helps where you delineate when you look at sin singular in scripture, what is it talking about? And I think it's talking about our sin nature.

So with that in view, it's its dominion and reign, which we'll see in Romans 5.21, its power in 5.12, and its penalty and condemnation in 5.18, and also we'll see it in 8.3. So we have all man is under its dominion and reign, its power, and its penalty and condemnation. So let's briefly review that. So the end of verse 9 says both Jew and Greek are all under sin, under its dominion and reign. Just a couple points there.

The sin nature. in the unbeliever reigns in his present spiritual death. He's separated from God. The sin nature reigns in that situation. And the verse that comes from is Romans 5 17. For if by the transgressions of one, that's Adam, death reign through one. So that's that comes that nugget. Then we get down to its power.

Every person is born with an Adamic sin nature. And we see that in Romans 5 12. Therefore, just as through one man, Adam, sin, or the sin of nature, entered into the world, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. And then the third point, under its penalty and condemnation, You know, God has condemned the sin nature, and this is the point our brother Mike brings up all the time, it's not wonderful, it's condemning, is that why is man in trouble? Because his sin nature is condemned, and he is in union with that sin nature, so he is condemned with that.

And we see that in Romans 8.3, the last part. He condemned the sin in the flesh.

And this thing was from our brother Hal, the overall outline of it. And I filled the verses in just to kind of give us a backup for that. So now let's look at the indictments. So we're going to go through 14 indictments. I'm going to cover last week's quickly, so I won't, let me just move this here. Okay, so we're going to look at verses 10 and 11 here. So the first one is, there is none righteous, not even one. Let me just stop for a second here.

I wanted to share, are you guys fans of the Andy Griffith show? It's on reruns forever. Now you can watch it probably every day of the week. Maybe every hour of the day, I don't know. But anyway, he has a sidekick Barney. Barney's always getting himself into trouble.

Well there's a scene, there are several scenes where they're in church. So there's one scene where Barney's coming out of church and he's talking to the pastor after the service and Barney walks up to the pastor and he's been asleep in church. So he missed the message. So he wants to be part of the conversation with the pastor. So he says, as he walks up, he says, you know, pastor, you can't say too much about sin. And it just kind of stuck with me. I said, well, that's what this message is about. You can't say too much about sin.

And we're going to see that. anyway okay so the first point here first indictment there is none righteous not even one so we see that and actually all these charges you know Paul does a fabulous job here all these charges don't come from Paul's original writing so to speak he references a verse in the Old Testament every single one of these indictments comes from the Old Testament either comes from the Psalms, Isaiah and so on it's just amazing so here's one of the things So I'm going to kind of contrast here. The Lord is righteous, but man is not righteous outside of God. So for the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright will behold his face. And man, on the other hand, for all has sinned and falls short of the glory of God.

No one has a right standing with God. Not even one. There's not one single person that has a right standing with God. That's why we needed a Savior. Okay, the second point. There is none who understands God. You know, I think if there had to be one of these, there's six in this list, the one that really stands out in my mind, they don't really understand God. Man doesn't understand God because they have not, they have not, because they don't understand Him, they don't find out, well, where can I find out about God? You can find out about God in His Word, but many people will never, never open the Word.

In fact, we have a relative, that says, she's a practicing attender of church. She says, I never read the Bible. I just don't read it. I take direction from someone else. It's kind of in the area of Mike's past life, if you will. I don't open the Bible. I just listen to what they say or what they tell me to do, which is sad.

Anyway, no one understands God. Man is continually not understanding God. And then from Romans we see that, and because this verse talks about his wrath, but the key part is, because he doesn't understand God, what comes out about God he suppresses. He doesn't want to hear it. He suppresses the truth and unrighteousness. He suppresses the truth that we have an incredible creation. He makes up stories about, well, this just evolved. He goes down that path of evolution, which is sad.

There is none who seeks for God. No one, really, no one diligently seeks for God. And you can see that. We can see that all across our whole world and our whole society. So here's the good news. For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. God had to intervene. Man didn't reach up to God. God reached down to man through His Son.

Okay, so that's three there. And we have three more in twelve. All have turned aside from God. The idea is to turn aside, to deviate from the right path. And a beautiful passage here we all know. All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way. But the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on him. And then the fifth one. Together they have all become useless or rotten.

What's interesting, this word useless, according to Newell, I've been going through, actually, I really appreciate Mike getting his clue into Newell on this. He just has some great things. This word from the Greek came from the idea of rotten fruit. Whatever is utterly, irrevocably bad and yucky, rotten fruit can be pretty bad.

And then Psalm 53.3 says, and they have all together become filthy and corrupt. The sixth point, there is none who does good, not even one.

And this is kind of an interesting point. I learned a little bit. I had not realized the richness of this word for good. It really has the idea of kindness of heart. And actually, it's translated kindness. When you see the fruit of the Spirit, that is this word here. It's translated good here, but it's the word for kindness, kindness of heart. And God is kindness in His very being. His grace, He does His grace and kindness, it talks about in many verses.

Okay, so that's the six things that talk about the character of man, the character of man's sin. So today's verses, they're kind of grouped, and I appreciate Macaulay kind of helped me here, kind of grouped in like three sections. The first, 13 and 14, talk about four aspects of our mouth, our throat, our tongue, our lips. And then the next group, 15 through 70, talk about kind of man's conduct, if you will, his feet. His feet are swift to do something. There's a path that is a wrong path.

And then it kind of sums up the last indictment is there's no fear of God before their eyes. That's the bottom line. All said and done, man does not fear God. And don't we see that just so much? Man does not fear the one who made him. It's just incredible. They go off and they create their own gods in their own image.

Okay, so let's go through this. So actually I'm just going to backtrack for a second. I have four points here. So this whole indictment scheme, the first section we just covered in 10-12 talks about the scope of man's sin. This is his sinful character. We just covered those.

Now we're next going to talk about, as the verses say, his sinful speech, his throat, his tongue, his lips, his mouth. Then we're going to see his conduct by the path he takes and where his feet go. And then lastly, the result of his sinfulness, no fear of God and man. So that's where we're headed. So let's get into verse 13 here. So I can find all kinds of little cartoon things. Here's my mouth here.

So actually, some have said, Bob will appreciate that this is the divine doctor the divine doctor looks at man's mouth, and he says yuck He has he has a he has a tongue problem. He has a throat problem. He has a lip problem in a mouth problem He's gonna go through all these he's going to examine what comes out of man's mouth He starts off the throat is an open grave So literally in the interlinear it says the throat of them is a grave having been opened and This is very picturesque and very disgusting, if you will. His mouth is an open grave or something like that. I think King James opens sepulcher. It's like you've opened up a grave. I guess I haven't, I've never done this. I'm thankful I haven't had to. But opening up a grave, if it's a fresh grave, it's not going to be very pleasant, right?

Remember Martha, was it Martha or Mary? Who came to him first? Martha, maybe. She said, Lord, it's going to stink. If we go and get Lazarus, it's going to stink. So graves can be very disgusting. So he's making his point here. Their throat is a grave standing open, if you will.

It's a person, again, as Jim pointed out, these are people outside of Christ, not knowing Christ, having been opened, perfect, passive, participle. So it says it's a completed action here. Past completed action with abiding results. So the picture here from Weiss, the grave having been opened with result is standing open. So that's this picture of man's throat. And it's permanently opened.

Sir Robertson says, the mouth, the words is like the odor of a newly opened grave. And then from the Psalms, there is nothing reliable in what they say. Their inward part is destruction itself. Their throat is an open grave. So pretty disgusting view there.

Okay, let's go on. With their tongues they keep deceiving. Or literally, in the interlinear it says, they were working deceit with the tongues of them. So the idea of working to seed is to lure. It's like a bait. We talked in Sunday school about the lure of the temptation process. Well, this isn't the same word, but it's the same idea. To lure by bait.

And this is kind of unusual. Imperfect tense, which is continuous action in past time. And it's a fact. So Newell says it denotes the habitual practice of the human race. Man outside of Christ with sin nature can't help but be deceiving. He's deceiving by his very, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. That's what man is about outside of Christ.

Vincent says, I guess speaking about the Hebrew people or the Hebrews, that they smooth their tongues. How about a smooth talker, right? Have you ever been to some place and it's a salesman and he's so smooth, you kind of just say, I want to get away from this guy. I don't know.

It makes you feel creepy because you think he's doing something underhandedly. He's going to pull out something here and have me sign an agreement for life or whatever. So anyway, that's kind of the idea. They use their tongue to deceive, to mislead, to deal treacherously. Okay, so the third one.

The poison of ass. This is very picturesque. This is a picture of a snake. Apparently all snakes have venom in the sacs. That's how they do their thing. That's how they kill things. They have this poison stuff in there. That's how they do their business. And James, we're going to see in James coming up here in our Sunday school class, but no one can tame the tongue.

It's a restless evil full of deadly poison. So Newell says he's convinced this is the Egyptian Cobra. I thought it was pretty interesting how some people comment and say, well, it's snakes and they do this and that. Well, Newell says, it's the Egyptian Cobra. I said, OK, brother, that's fine. OK, it's the Egyptian Cobra. I'll go with that. Deadly serpent contains poison and bags under their lips. And then Psalm 140, they sharpen their tongues as serpents. The poison of a viper is under their lips.

So all these pictures that Paul brings out, all these charges against mankind, boy, are very picturesque. He doesn't hold back anything. And if you think about it, you can go through almost and identify so much that we see in our world. And then there's one more in this vein. The mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. And this is an interesting one. Let me just give you the little story here.

J. Vernon McGee, which I listen to and read quite a bit, someone challenged him about this verse. They said, Pastor McGee, the mouth is full of cursing and bitterness. I don't believe that. So J. Vernon McGee said, when he was preaching in Los Angeles, he said, OK, let's go out.

We'll go out to the street here in front of the church. And I want you to sock the first guy we see in the jaw and see what comes out of his mouth. Okay, I don't think they actually did that but it was an interesting challenge and it's an interesting approach and you think about it What comes out many times and many times even as believers what comes out of our we go back to our old nature it shows Where we come from we have a fall in nature and we still have it with us and we still hang out there sometimes so this is Paul this is a fourth indictment about the mouth the mouth is full of cursing and It's full, it's heavy laden, like a ship being burdened down.

Present tense, continuous action. Of cursing. To curse. Actually, the idea of cursing is not so much the foul language necessarily, it's actually wishing evil against someone else. That's in view here. With bitterness. Repoachable language. So Psalm 10 says, His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression. Under his tongue is mischief and wickedness." And then Newell says, How men do curse others. Bitterness is ever ready. And it just seems like that's the case. I had a case when I was a teenager. I had a summer job for the school system. We went around in trucks and we would take desks from one school to another school. And I was kind of a sheltered boy.

I don't know, I didn't... These guys, I mean, from the minute we got in that truck until the end of the day, there was no... every three words were some, you know, cursing, some bitterness just against everybody else in the world. It just went on. I get home, wow, I'm glad I got through with that day. That's one day, I don't know, I just, I couldn't, it was hard to take.

And we see that sometimes, we see that, you know, men just, you know, their inward nature comes out loud and clear. Okay, so now we go on to the feet. Their feet are swift to shed blood. And this is a man not knowing Christ. So the idea of feet here is the idea of speaking about man's conduct how he conducts himself, speak to that.

And swift is the idea of nimble, sharpness, keenness, eagerness. Many times they're eager because they're eager to do bad things. To shed blood, in this case, it says. Swift is an adjective that describes the shedding of blood. They want to do it swiftly.

Blood will be shed the death of something the shedding of blood and so some some Isaiah says Their feet run to evil and they hasten to shed innocent blood And then and then the be part of that says their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity Okay, then we go on to pass The metaphor here kind of changes to pass pass their ways from feet and So we see the conduit described as a path.

And it talks about destruction. The destruction and misery are in their paths. The ruin and shattering of things. Misery, hardship, suffering, distress. And this is Paul. He saw the wretchedness of who he was. He saw the wretchedness of the sin nature. Wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death. Then Isaiah, devastation and destruction are in their highways.

And then Newell comments about, as it talks about Genesis 6.11. As it was in the days of Noah, our Lord says, so shall it be the coming of the Son of Man. In those days of Noah, the earth was full of violence. Boy, the more we see our society today, the more we see violence on every hand. and the path of peace they have not known."

This is a fact about the ones not knowing Christ. They're not knowing the path or the way of peace. Isaiah says, they do not know the way of peace. There's no justice in their tracks. They have made their paths crooked. Whoever treads on them or goes with them does not know peace.

And peace is something that only God, there are several ways to look at peace. We have the peace of God and the peace from God. So, Newell says here, the unregenerate man does not know, follow or really desire to know. the way of wisdom and those paths are peace so knowing the wisdom of God is a way we we come to know peace and here's a very familiar verse and so this is not the most familiar verse but here wisdom wisdom is speaking here in this proverb here wisdom's ways are pleasant ways and all her paths are peace okay so the climax of this is and there is no God before their eyes So in the present tense, continuous action, they continually have no fear of God in their lives.

And from Psalm 36, transgressions speak to the ungodly within his heart. There is no fear of God before his eyes. And then Psalm 36 verse 2 says, he flatters and deceives himself. Think how much man deceives himself about God. And we've learned from our little trek here in Romans up through verse 20 here pretty soon. We've learned that man has understanding of who God is, but he deceives himself, right?

He looks at creation and he says, there's no God there. His conscience tells him there's a God. He says, no God there. So man is deceiving himself. And the other gentleman says, the seed of reverence is in their eyes. I had not actually thought of the seed of reverence in their eyes. He's kind of contrasting that with the fact that there's no God before their eyes. And then Proverbs 1 said, Proverbs 1 7 says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fools despise wisdom and instruction.

OK. So to kind of sum things up here, I took this from, this comes from Newell. And he kind of presents this, as a admonition to tell others. Tell others about the Lord, if you will. He doesn't say that precisely, but that's kind of what he's saying. He says, so we'll see here. He says, this great passage, speaking of 9 through 18, needs to be pondered, prayed over, and thoroughly believed. Preach continually in these last days when God consciousness is dying out. And Newell lived, I said, well, he's saying that right there, and it applies to now too. God's consciousness is dying out. He lived from the 1800s, 1850s or 60s, that's his birth, and he lived up until 1950s. He died in 1950 something. So he had to, you know, that's pretty contemporary, but God consciousness is dying out.

He says it's no kindness but a terrible wrong to hide from a criminal the sentence that must surely overtake him unless pardoned. His second point, for a physician to conceal from a patient a cancer that will destroy him unless quickly removed is no kindness. For the acquaintance with the hidden pitfalls of a path that he beholds someone taking and not to warn him of his danger is no kindness. It just kind of struck me that after reading this and taking in those indictments that Paul brings to us about mankind and where he's at, we do people no kindness by not telling them about a Savior that can save them.

And that's our desire, our desire at Holly Hills, our desire individually to have men and women come to know the Savior. So so next week we're going to talk about I get a chance to do that which is always always neat. We're going to talk about You know a phrase I kind of came across I was you look through and say well, what can I? What can I talk about in this wonderful time the resurrection of our Savior? And there's a phrase that kind of shows up in Acts whenever the Apostles preached They use they use this phrase they present their message about Christ you know Peter did it when he preached and then Paul did it too and They would kind of come up, they would talk about, well, God did, the God of our fathers did this and that.

And they would, but they come down to the fact, but God raised him from the dead. So that's going to be my title, but God raised him from the dead. God raised the Lord Jesus from the dead. It was something that God planned in the eternal covenant. It's in the Gospels.

It's in the message of Peter and Paul that they preached so come next weekend and learn about that Okay, let's close. We thank you so much Lord. We thank you for this day We thank you for the wonderful message. We have in our Savior, but we thank you for the somber news about your judgment of mankind and we thank you that you provided it for us for our instructions and that people would learn from it and and turn to the Savior. We ask it in His name. Amen.